Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) + The South

Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) + The South Travel Guide

Tropical Ho Chi Minh City (still called Saigon by most residents) is arguably Asia’s most dynamic boomtown—the epitome of the Wild, Wild East. Vietnam’s largest city (population 8 million) is also the engine of its economy and in every respect the brasher younger sibling to the buttoned-down capital, Hanoi. Still, the gracious cityscape that the French once knew—traditional Chinese shop houses, Art Deco cafés—endures. But as incomes rise, a new generation is making its mark; high-end boutiques and exclusive candlelit boîtes now cater to status-hungry Vietnamese as well as tourists and expats. Increasingly cosmopolitan, the city’s burgeoning fashion-and-design, dining, and nightlife scenes await those who can keep up with the Saigonese.

"Actually it's livening up. and beautiful, besides."
"Uh-huh."
"Great food too."
"Hmm. Well, it's not exactly Saigon."
I've had this conversation more than once with people in Saigon. They'll tell you Hanoi, the capital,is too small (actual po...

The 1970’s
The traveler’s map sure looked different in T+L’s first decade. Future hot spots like Shanghai, Prague, Moscow, and Saigon were still well beyond the pale, but Americans were heading to Burma, to Iran (then booming under the shah), and...

In the midst of last winter’s revolts across the Middle East and North Africa, I kept getting e-mails and text messages from friends and colleagues in Tripoli, Cairo, Sanaa, and Benghazi. It made me homesick for the days when I spent more than hal...

Beijing
Qi
The Lowdown In Chinese, Qi means "Seven"— the number of China’s provinces whose cuisines are on the menu of the Ritz-Carlton Beijing, Financial Street’s new restaurant. (For more on the hotel, see T+L’s It List.) Craving the tingling...

Planning a trip to Vietnam invariably summons visions of the purchases that await: flawless custom clothing, one-of-a-kind colonial curios, high-gloss lacquerware. But high expectations often fizzle upon arrival in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon, to alm...

“An com chua?”
If you’re going to understand Vietnam and the Vietnamese, this three-word phrase is key. A friendly greeting exchanged throughout the day, it poses a seemingly mundane question: “Have you eaten yet?” (The polite answer, even if you...

The urban ease and European elegance that made Saigon, well, Saigon, is helping shape present-day
Ho Chi Minh City. Drawing on the talents of ambitious native and expatriate local designers,
the current movement is impacting everything fro...

VIETNAM AIR FLIES THREE TIMES A WEEK FROM HANOI TO DIEN BIEN PHU. The trip takes a little over an hour, and these days the planes are large, relatively comfortable ATR's—a significant improvement, friends tell me, over the Russian Ilyushins that u...

The French, and Graham Greene, called it the Rue Catinat. Americans knew the boulevard as Tu Do, or Freedom; during the war it became a bawdy R-and-R haven for G.I.'s. In 1975 the Communists renamed the street Dong Khoi, or Uprising. Today develop...